Joseph Mallord William Turner

The page contains a sketch, drawn horizontally, of high hills coming down to the water’s edge. Finberg called it simply ‘River banks’,1 but the location has been further specified as a view of the Seine between Le Havre and Rouen.2 Preceding drawings in the sketchbook are of Jumièges, the following of river views, and then the town of Duclair, consistent with Turner travelling eastwards upriver and indicating that this sketch can be specified further to a view from the Seine between Jumièges and Duclair.

Art historian Ian Warrell notes that this drawing (as well as folio 63 verso opposite; D23823) formed the preliminary sketch3 for Turner’s watercolour, The Banks of the Seine near Jumièges and Duclair, Normandy, c.1832 (Tate D24638; Turner Bequest CCLIX 73), and was also the source4 for another watercolour of about the same date, The Banks of the Seine near Jumièges, Normandy (Tate D24783; Turner Bequest CCLIX 218). Turner captures the rocky high hills and small clumps of trees below in a few simple lines.